Priced To Sell

November 20, 2008

In today’s volatile market, buyers expect to get a great deal when then purchase a home. It’s almost as if they want to be rewarded for being brave and credit worthy. So how do you price your home so that it’s competitive enough to get buyers looking at it, but high enough to allow the negotiating room buyers need so they can assure themselves they purchased the home at a discount?

A while back I showed a home that had been reduced for a quick sale. It was a great deal. The buyer I was working with loved the house and made an offer (90% of list price) on the home. The offer was rejected. When I asked if the buyer would have been happy with the purchase price if the home had originally been listed higher and he’d offered the current list price. The buyer admitted that buying the home at a discount was more important than finding the right house at the right price. He absolutely could not pay full list price for the home, even though the list price was below comparable homes.

It’s difficult for sellers to understand that some of the appreciation they’ve experienced over the last few years has been wiped out. But if a seller has owned for more than about 8 years, he still should have built up enough equity to be able to price well, leave a little room for negotiation and walk away from the table with some profit. Compare profits to what your stock portfolio or retirement is worth, and sellers in most parts of the country are still OK. Yes, there are areas in the country where sellers are upside down in their mortgages, but how many of these sellers have owned for more than 8 years?

So if you’re a seller with enough equity to negotiate, do so with grace and gratitude. Hopefully, you’ll get just a good a deal when you go to buy your next home!

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Local Information for Greensburg, PA

Latitude: 40.304461 -- Longitude: -79.544511

Other Area Cities: Greensburg Jeannette Latrobe Irwin Murrysville

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Greensburg is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA and part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The city is named after Nathaniel Greene, a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. Greensburg is the county seat of Westmoreland County. Located southeast of Pittsburgh, Greensburg is a major business and cultural center in Western Pennsylvania. It is evident as the city's population doubles during work hours. The city ranks seventh in Pennsylvania in terms of daytime growth, behind Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, King of Prussia, Lancaster and State College. It also ranks 16th in the United States for daytime growth among towns with a resident population between 15,000 to 24,999. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Pennsylvania 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Greensburg	Pennsylvania	United States
Population	15,889	12,281,054	281,421,906
Median age	39.3	38	35.3
Median age for Male	36.7	36.5	34
Median age for Female	41.6	39.4	36.5
Households	7,144	4,777,003	105,480,101
Household population	15,096	11,847,753	273,643,273
Average household size	2.11	2.48	2.59
Families	3,923	3,208,388	71,787,347
Average family size	2.85	3.04	3.14
Housing units	7,734	5,249,750	115,904,641
Occupied units	7,144	4,777,003	105,480,101
Vacant units	590	472,747	10,424,540

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